The Latest from Brad Montgomery
Six Easy Sure-Fire Techniques For Adding Humor to Your Life — This Week!
1. Listen to funny stuff. Buy some CDs of comedians and pop them in your car on the way to work. I love to listen to the CDs several times. The first couple of times I just laugh. And then the next couple of times I try to understand why the jokes are funny; why they make me laugh. By studying the form of the jokes, I internalize some of the techniques and find myself using the same techniques with my friends, my family — and my audiences.
Bonus tip: Used CD stores are great for finding great — and cheap — comedy CDs. Just go to their comedy section and buy them all. Who cares if you’ve never heard of the comedian before?
And now with iTUNES and MP3s, listening to comedy is even simpler. Just search under comedy or comedians and you’re on your way to downloading more laughs-per-day.
2. Tell a joke. No, seriously. Tell a joke. I don’t care if you have never told a joke in your life, or if you claim that you cannot tell a joke to save your life. You’re wrong…. Just tell a joke. You don’t have to tell it well, you just have to do it. I promise you: when you think about jokes, when you think about humor, and when you think about fun… fun will follow. So just do it! Need a good clean joke to tell? Check out a couple of my favorites here.
3. Linger over the funny pages. Find one that makes you smile. Think about why it makes you smile. Notice — and enjoy — the fact that you are doing nothing but thinking about humor, laughter, and fun. Give yourself permission to really linger and enjoy it. As I said above, think about humor and humor WILL follow.
4. Make a point to find just 3 things each day that make you say, How Cool is That?! (Three is easy… I can do that before breakfast!)
Here’s the deal: we don’t make our days fun, funny, and magical. The key is just to notice that our days are ALREADY fun, funny and magical. And the first step in mastering this basic concept is to just look for cool stuff, label it (That’s something cool!” Or, if you’re me: How Cool is That!?) and enjoy it. It might be a hug from your kids or your spouse. Or the fact that your co-worker noticed your new shoes or haircut. Or the fact that when you stopped for a coffee at Starbucks they totally messed up your order and, in the end, you received your Double Shot, 1/2-Caf, Non-Fat, Sugar Free Vanilla Latte for FREE! How cool is that?
The point: look for good stuff and you’ll find good stuff. We don’t MAKE our lives fun and funny… we just NOTICE that our lives are already fun and funny. Need some examples of stuff that makes me say, “How cool is that?” Here are a few things from this morning.
*I got up early and felt like I got a bunch done early (before the kids woke up) and it made me feel good about myself. (I’m not a morning person. It was hard!)
*I saw the early morning light on our snow-covered mountains. It made them look a gorgeous shade of orangey-pink. Totally cool.
*Even though my 8 year old was a bit grumpy this morning (What else is new? She’s not a morning person either) my 6 year old was a delight. Ben and I got dressed and cleaned up together and some of his joy rubbed off on me. That was cool.
* I volunteered today in Ben’s Kindergarten class. One kid I was helping actually seemed to learn something. After we were done, I told her she had done a good job. And at that moment, this totally shy girl looked at me in the eyes and smiled. Cool!
*At this very moment, I’m typing in a sun-filled office with some nice tunes playing in the background. I love my job– How cool is that!?
5. Pick up a book about fun, humor, and laughter. It might be a funny book (like the Dave Barry books or maybe the comic Doonesbury books ) Or it might be a book that reminds you how you can find the humor in your life. (Stumped? Try my book: Humor Me!) Whatever. Find a book about humor that intrigues you and commit a few minutes each day to reading about laughter.
6. Make a point to spend time with up-beat people who make you laugh. You get juice from those people, don’t ya? This time focus on giving them some energy back. Be an upbeat, fun, excited, exciting, interested, interesting person yourself. That way you both end up leaving with more joy for the day. Nothing can help draw out your best YOU more than fun people whom you admire.
These are easy right? Common sense! The kind of stuff your Grandma told ya! The problem isn’t learning how to do it. The problem is remembering to do it. Imagine how different your day would be if you smiled three additional times today. Or if you laughed just twice more. Nothing huge… no big changes. Just baby steps. Now imagine how your week would change if you stopped to enjoy 15 things this week and laughed 30 additional times? You CAN change your life–one day at a time. Get started now.
Are you a believer in the power of levity and lightheartedness and its ability to help your organization get to where it deserves to be? Are you having trouble convincing the masses? Give us a call. We can help. |
